


Strange Things

by out_there



Category: Sports Night
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-15
Updated: 2005-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-15 05:02:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/out_there/pseuds/out_there
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People do strange things when they're grieving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Things

**Author's Note:**

> Dan/Isaac came up on the random SN generator and frightened [](http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=pheobesmum)[****](http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=pheobesmum)and[](http://celli.livejournal.com/profile)[ **celli**](http://celli.livejournal.com/). I just had to write it. Thanks to [](http://in-the-bottle.livejournal.com/profile)[**in_the_bottle**](http://in-the-bottle.livejournal.com/) for betaing.

People do strange things when they're grieving. Dan knows that. Hell, Dan's experienced it. He knows that the world stops making sense for those first few weeks. People long to do things that are stupid and almost self-destructive, searching for a reason why they're still here when someone else isn't. Because that someone else should be here, and the world doesn't make sense if they're not.

Dan gets it.

Dan even gets the need for casual sex. His first year at Dartmouth was a blur of pretty girls and handsome guys. It felt like months of long nights, beer runs and bare skin. His first night was like that too. He can still remember talking to the girl -- Sandy, or Sheila, or Shelley -- and getting called to the phone. She followed him there and waited as his Mom gasped, sobbed and told him about Sam.

He'd walked back to his room in a daze. She'd walked beside him, and when she asked what happened, he'd told her that his younger brother had been in a car accident. He hadn't told her Sam was dead because He couldn't say it, couldn't believe that Sam, his baby brother with the comic collection and the algebra equations scribbled across Dan's notebook, could actually begone, just like that.

She hadn't asked too many questions, thank god. She hadn't asked much other than Sam's age and if Dan was going back home. She'd sat there talking about the music on the radio, about how huge the campus seemed, and when he couldn't force himself to think anymore, her lips were sweet and pliant under his.

It had been soft and slow. It had been what he needed: an excuse to turn his mind off, to ignore his memories. A way to hide himself under taste and touch; to concentrate on hands and legs instead of thinking about travel arrangements and funerals.

It had kept him sane for the next week of deathly silence and unspoken accusations. To this day, he still has a soft fondness for her. He's grateful to her for being there, even though she barely remembered him later.

Dan understands the need for this.

That's why he's here. He came to the wake because Esther was a wonderful woman, as warm and caring to them as she was to her own children. But he stayed the night because he understands the desperate need not to be alone. So when Isaac's hand lingers on his arm a little too long, when it whispers across the back of his neck, Dan doesn't pull away. Instead, he just smiles and thinks that people do strange things when they're grieving.


End file.
